


Bremen

by feverbeats



Category: A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel, French Revolution RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 07:42:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13565973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: "It's more complicated than that," Max says, his voice clipped. But if he keeps wanting it and doesn't get it, he thinks he may die. He can't look away from Danton's hands.A happy(ish) ending fic, because this book destroyed my life.





	Bremen

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings: reference to rape, pregnant ftm character. Thanks to Gwen for a lot of the ideas in this story, especially re: Robespierre.
> 
> Also, [there's a playlist.](https://8tracks.com/feverbeats/on-the-road-to-bremen)

**Camille**

Camille doesn't sleep on the night before his execution. He can see death coming. It's bright and open and all he can feel is fear.

There's a horrifying freedom in knowing how close death is. It feels like spring in his lungs. It feels like flowers, like dawn. He never lived like he had anything to lose. He wants to peel his skin off and shoot into the sky like lightning. He wants to take a hammer to his fingers.

He can hear voices. The others aren't asleep, either. Fabre is coughing. Dillon and Georges are talking together, although there isn't much to say. Somewhere other than here, Lucile is waiting to die.

He feels fevered. He keeps thinking of things he can do to change the future, to save Lucile (anything else seems too impossible). He wants to call Max back and tell him he's changed his mind. But he's already done something so awful that Max, if he finds out, would not make that offer again

He think he must be drifting into a half sleep, because he thinks he hears Max's voice. It's promising the same things it promised last time, only more desperately. Camille wonders, idly, if Saint-Just will watch the execution. He vows to make it as uncomfortable as possible, one last petty revenge.

Max is still talking, his voice hushed, rapid, panicked. When he finally stops speaking, Camille hears Georges answer. It's not the same answer Camille gave. Then again, the terms offered wouldn't be the same for Camille and Georges. (Maybe they would have been, if Camille's years of flirtation with Max had yielded any results.)

Then someone's hands are on Camille, trying to get him up.

He remembers nothing of the rest of the night. Georges tells him later that he fainted.

When he wakes up, it's dawn, and he's in a strange bed. He can still hear voices, but this time he swears he hears Lucile. He's in so much pain, behind the numb fear.

"He's awake, Danton." That's Dillon.

Camille blinks at Georges, uncomprehending. "Today?" he tries to ask. The stutter is so bad he can barely speak.

"We're safe," Georges says, frowning down at him.

Camille bursts into tears.

"He's in shock," Georges tells Lucile. "It'll be fine."

**Maximilien**

To understand you have to go back.

Go back to Maximilien as a child whose mother has just died. He doesn't cry because he has to take care of his siblings, instead. As soon as he's living with his grandparents, he asks to wear suits instead of dresses. Because they love him and they worry about him, they let him. But he tells himself, even then, that he can never, ever, be close with anyone.

Go back to Louis-le-Grand, and Camille. In school, Max wishes he could compress his physical form down into nothing, or shave centimeters off until there's nothing left. If only he could just be a floating brain, or better, a floating soul. But Camille is so physical. He's always draping himself all over Max, trying to kiss him, grabbing at him. It's sweet. It's terrifying.

Camille has been entrusted to him, something Max takes extremely seriously. But he can't kiss Camille back and he can't ever tell him the truth.

One night, before school ends, the two of them go for a walk at night. Camille is next to to him, shaking with emotion. Caring for him is something Max has grown into, not out of. It's spring, and everything feels new, fully possible and safe. Almost safe. Max would never be so foolish as to really believe himself safe.

"What's going to happen next?" Camille asks. His stutter is worse instead of better. Everything runs backwards. "Will we stay together, do you think?"

Max doesn't know. But he does know that he's almost done with school and no one has found out the truth. Or rather, they have only seen the truth, the truth he has brought about by force of will. He could be anything after this. He has a voice that people will listen to.

"Whatever we do," Camille says, "it had better be together." His hand is hot on Max's. It's not romance, but it's just as important. The only thing more important is Max's ideals.

Go back to Max first coming to Paris.

By this time, he's created a bubble around himself. Nobody gets inside. It's partly what he says--Rousseau, and purity--but it's partly the habit of fear. He wears what he has to under his clothes, and he dresses very carefully. Even in Arras, nobody knows.

(His father still calls him Marguerite. Thankfully, his father is a drunk and no one listens to what he says.)

In Paris, though, his social circle expands. Danton is even more physical than Camille, and Max realizes, horrified, that things will not be as simple as he'd hoped. Danton is a brute. He's a monster.

"When are you going to get married, Robespierre?" he bellows at Max one day. He doesn't understand.

It wouldn't have worked, with Adele, nor Anais, nor any of his other admirers. Max hears Danton call him a eunuch, and it stings, but it's a useful distraction from the truth. But Danton keeps hounding him. He grabs Max's ass once, one the way out of a meeting. Max nearly faints. He sometimes can't tell of Danton hates him or wants him. Or both.

**Lucile**

When they first get to Georges's country house, Camille shouts at her and won't let her near. He can barely speak, and she thinks he might be ill in some awful, intangible, (irreparable) way.

She lets Georges take her to bed almost immediately, and then Arthur. She still can't feel anything. All she wants is Camille, but he's still a wild, untouchable thing. He can't seem to believe he's alive.

Lucile believes it. She and Camille have been put to the same test and come out different on the other side. They were twins together, dark and vicious, careless and cruel, but not anymore.

She would have offered Max anything (even Horace--she thought about it) to save Camille, but there's nothing he wants. She feels like they are sisters, even more than she and Adele. They're both so fragile, but with an unbreakable core. She thinks it makes them bad people.

"He let us go?" Camille keeps asking. Georges hasn't answered him yet.

Every morning when Lucile wakes up, she remembers it's all over, but her body doesn't believe it.

A week in, she lies in the curve of Georges's body and says, "Tell me how we're alive."

Georges is silent for a long time. Finally he says, "He let us go."

"Georges."

"He let _me_ go. Dillon and the others helped me kill some of the guards to get everyone else out."

Lucile can't suppress a gasp. "Only you? Are you going to tell Camille?" He'll be devastated. Despite everything, he still loves Max.

"Eventually," Georges says, thoughtful.

Lucile feels cold inside. "He let you go," she says slowly. "Because you're....?"

"What do you think?" Georges says.

Lucile gets up, pulls Georges's robe around herself, and goes to see if Camille will let her near. He's quiet and still, looking at a blank page in front of him.

"Writing?" she asks.

He shakes his head. Lucile sits next to him. His beautiful dark hair is a tangled mess. Hers is impeccably done. "Let me," she says.

To her surprise, he moves to let her sit next to him. When she touches his hair, he doesn't flinch.

It'll be fine.

**Maximilien**

Go back to the day Max realized the problem with Danton more complex.

"I don't understand you."

People say this to Maximilien when they think they understand him perfectly and are about to explain what they think is wrong with him. However, he is thinks Danton truly doesn't understand him. He folds his hands and waits to find out.

"I've never met anyone so timid who clings to his convictions so obsessively."

They're alone, which may be a mistake. Max was looking for Camille, but he found Danton instead. Why Danton is alone at Camille's house is another question, and one Max tries not to think too hard about.

Max considers explaining that he has to believe the things he believes with complete and ardent devotion. It's how he's made it this far.

Instead, he says, "I just know who I am. Do you?"

Danton laughs, and it might be Max's imagination that it shakes the room. "More than anyone you've ever met, yes. So, come on. All of this harping on purity. You're just afraid, aren't you? You're one of those little virgins who's so scared because he knows if he did give in, he'd like it too much. They're usually nuns or something. You're a rarity."

Max's mouth is dry, and he finds himself speechless.

Then the door opens, and Lucile lets herself in. Max can see her eyes flash as she takes in the scene. "I forgot something at the market," she says evenly, starting to close the door again.

"No," Max says, feeling the panic rise. "No, stay."

So she does. Lucile, who Max _knows_ has thought about Georges like that, is on his side. She and Max sit together on the couch and she argues with Georges about politics. Max doesn't really agree with either of them entirely, but he's so busy getting his breath back and he can't formulate a coherent argument.

He can't decide whether or not it's appropriate for Lucile to be alone with the two of them. He'd never do anything, of course, but it still doesn't look right. He suggests this, and she just laughs.

"I thought I was the chaperone," she says.

Danton grunts.

That night, when Max is alone, he closes his eyes and touches himself, thinking about Danton's huge, rough hands. He imagines Danton's fingers inside him. He imagines his nails raking across Danton's back. He won't let himself imagine anything beyond that, and he finds himself gasping and unsatisfied.

**Fabre**

The cough is better. Fabr was prepared to die bravely, almost. He wasn't prepared for this. He's been sleeping fifteen hours a day, and he can hear Lucile worrying and Georges telling her it's all right, it's all over now.

He can't believe it came to this. He's a cynic, yes, but _god_. He and Max were supposed to be friends. Max trusts him. A part of him wonders if that's why Max struck out against him first. Fabre doesn't have much room left for sympathy.

Every time Fabre wakes up, Camille is resting his head on Fabre's chest. His beautiful hair is knotted and tangled, and he's still so bruised, but he's alive.

They're all alive.

It'll be fine.

**Maximilen**

Go back to the day Max told Danton the truth.

Danton can't stop calling him names in public, questioning his masculinity. There's still a certain vicious energy behind it that Max identifies, with horror, as attraction.

It makes heat coil in his gut. He stays up late, lying awake on his hard mattress and just thinking about it.

Max spends all day with Fabre. They don't always get along--especially lately--but Max trusts Fabre. He's a theater person, and he's more observant than most people. And most importantly, he knows everything about Max.

"How _did_ you know?" Max asks. They're together in the very back corner of a cafe, a place Max usually hates because of the noise, but it's quiet today. It feels more private than his house.

"Know?" Fabre raises his eyebrows over his drink. "I take it you're referring to your...body?"

Max flushes. "Well, don't put it like that," he snaps. Lately people are anxious when he snaps at them. "But yes. That." He hasn't asked what Fabre makes of it. If Fabre thinks he's a cross-dresser. Whatever else he might think.

"I wasn't actually sure at first," Fabre says. "You've done well. But you know, I'm around actors all day. And people who aren't actors. People whose life it is, like you."

Being seen, being known, is almost worse than if Fabre didn't understand.

"I don't know what I'm going to do about Georges," Max says carefully, willing Fabre to see what he means.

Fabre winces. "Oh yes. Georges. More people want him than want Camille. Believe me, speaking as someone who would happily have them both."

Max wrinkles his nose in distaste.

"If your question is should you tell him, despite his constant stream of verbal abuse," Fabre says, "my answer is that he's softer than he seems. But if he decides to think of you as a woman--see if you can bear that. And also consider how he treats women."

Max thinks about it. Then he invites Danton over. The Duplays aren't home, and Max can unclench his hands from anxious fists. He thinks of a list of really awful things to say to Danton to make him leave.

"I invited you over to apologize for your rudeness," he says.

Danton laughs heartily. He's huge, filling the doorway. "You wish."

"Then maybe you should go," It comes out shrill.

Danton looks at him.

"No," Max says. He can't, he _can't._

"I don't like games," Danton says. "I have no patience for them. It's why I'm sick of Camille and Lucile."

If his meaning wasn't clear before, it is now.

"You're mistaken," Max says stiffly.

"You want me," Danton says. He comes in and shuts the door behind himself. That's how it will be, Max thinks. Danton taking what he wants and Max unable to stop him. That would be easier.

But Danton isn't taking it. He's watching Max's face. "I don't understand you," he says again. "Why can't you admit it? Is it your religious fervor? Camille is your best friend, for God's sake."

"It's more complicated than that," Max says, his voice clipped. But if he keeps wanting it and doesn't get it, he thinks he may die. He can't look away from Danton's hands.

"So tell me," Danton says, exasperated.

So Max does. Georges doesn't believe him at first. He laughs. When he stops laughing, he says, "Now will you fucking kiss me?"

Once Georges knows, it's hard to slow things down. Camille finds out, and then Lucile. Camille shouts with frustration when he realizes Max has secrets from him but overall, Max realizes, these are his friends. It makes what happens next so much harder.

**Danton**

Max let him live. Georges reminds himself of this every day. They have food and shelter, and their wounds are healing. Camille is quieter, but he's able to speak again. Fabre is alive. Lucile is letting herself cry.

But Max is still in Paris. His own party will eat him alive if someone doesn't do something, and it will happen faster because Georges and his friends are alive. The terror has ebbed from Georges's bones, leaving only a driving need to put his family back together.

Louise is safe with her parents. Horace is with Lucile's parents. Everyone who should matter is safe. But Max let him live and Max is in Paris.

And there's the other thing. He, Camille, Lucile, and Fabre are the only ones who know. If he can just get to Paris and make sure it's all right, it'll be fine.

**Maximilien**

Go back to the day Max let Georges do something he should not have.

They hurt each other. They have so little in common, how could they not? Georges coaxes Max past his limits, pushes him around. Max is condescending and dismissive and cruel. Georges starts calling him "little beast," and he keeps the name close to his heart.

He and Georges are alone again. They're naked, and Georges is holding Max from behind, his hand cupping Max's hip. Max can feel Georges's cock pressing against his back. It almost makes him forget that everything is falling apart.

Camille and Georges are betraying him, and they won't stop betraying him, not if he begs them in open court. He can imagine losing a lot of things, but not either of them. But Georges came here tonight being so kind, with a bottle of wine and one of Max's favorite pastries. So maybe things can changes.

Georges whispers in his ear, "I want you so much."

"I know," Max says, squeezing his eyes shut. He wants Georges, too. He's slick between his legs.

"I want to come inside you," Georges says. He slides his hand across Max's body to stroke his belly. "I want you to have my child."

Max feels a jolt of heat go through him, so strong he nearly cries out. "Do it," he says.

**Ça Ira**

And now here they are, in the heart of summer, the night before the Festival of the Supreme Being. Georges and Camille are safe outside the city, which isn't quite what Max wanted, but he had no choice. Max feels less safe every day. He sits alone in his bedroom, staring at the wall. He feels hollowed-out, something that's hard to imagine with the teeming, demonic life inside him. There is no doctor he can go to. His clothes are only barely hiding the problem. Soon, it won't matter. Soon, he thinks, the baby will kill him.

He tries and fails to sleep. Around one in the morning, there's a knock on his door. He opens it, half expecting God.

Close. It's Saint-Just. He looks like an angel. His hair is back and his eyes are bright. He's been telling Max what to do far too frequently for Max's liking these days, but it doesn't matter. Max is going to die soon. When everyone finds out about the baby, and what he is, there's no chance they'll let him live. He told Antoine because he had to, because there is no one else left. He thinks it changed things. 

"Antoine," Max says. He feels so far from his own body. His body, which is betraying him day by day. Nothing he wears will protect him soon.

Saint-Just just looks at him.

"What?" Max snaps. More demands, maybe. He'll meet them; he has no choice.

"They know," he says. "Fouche, Fouquier...all of them."

Max grips the back of his chair. "I'm going to faint," he says.

"The Festival is tomorrow," Saint-Just says, watching him. Max can't tell if he's worried or disgusted. "If you go there, they'll kill you." Unspoken in, _They'll dare, now that they know you're a woman._

"How?" Max asks. He likes how his voice sounds, very calm and rational. "How would they know?"

"Camille," Saint-Just says.

Max does faint.

When he wakes he's in a carriage, moving fast. "The Festival," he says. He head feels as if it's full of cotton.

It's almost light then they arrive, and Max is delirious. Georges gets him out of the carriage, kissing his face over and over, and carries him into a small house set far back from the road. There are too many people there, but all Max can see is Camille.

He says Camille's name.

"Max." Camille looks thinner than usual, his hair in disarray. He looks pale and terrified. Max can blink and imagine Camille dead.

"You ruined my life," Max says thickly.

"Yes," says Camille, "and you ruined mine." He doesn't stutter at all.

After that, all Max remembers is being in Georges's arms and being carried to a bed. He's sick, he thinks, and his whole body hurts. Someone keeps being there and holding his hand, and sometimes it's Camille. Once or twice it's Antoine, who was so upset by all of this at first..

Max gives birth to twin girls on 9 Thermidor. The babies are small, but they're healthy. He names one for Georges (Jacqueline). He doesn't think he'll name the other for Camille. Afterwards, Max falls asleep in Georges's arms while Camille and Lucile hold the babies.

When he wakes up, he lies in bed, staring at the ceiling. His body hurts, and he tries to align all the pieces he must try to fit back together. His revolution has been wrested from his hands. And he will not be safe in Paris again. Camille has betrayed him terribly, and he has betrayed them all. But they're all here under one roof, and Max's babies are crying.

Maybe it's fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Probably some people are gonna be like, "Why'd you make Robespierre trans? What's this adding to the story?" idk, I'm trans and I like putting trans shit in stories. That's the whole deal.


End file.
